July 6, 2014

Predatory Capitalism and the System's Denial in the Face of Truth

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/24698-predatory-capitalism-and-the-systems-denial-in-the-face-of-truth



Predatory Capitalism and the System's Denial in the Face of Truth
Saturday, 05 July 2014 09:28
By CJ Polychroniou, Transform! | News Analysis

Contemporary capitalism is characterized by a political economy which revolves around finance capital, is based on a savage form of free market fundamentalism, and thrives on a wave of globalizing processes and global financial networks that have produced global economic oligarchies with the capacity to influence the shaping of policymaking across nations.

As a result, contemporary advanced capitalist societies are plagued by dangerous levels of income and wealth inequality, mass unemployment, rising poverty rates, social polarization, and collapsing social provisions. Furthermore, democracy and the social contract are under constant attack by the current system and there is an ongoing pressure by the corporate and financial elite to convert all public goods and services into private goods and services.

The rising inequality in advanced capitalist countries is well documented. Most recently, Thomas Piketty’s publishing sensation Capital in the Twentieth-First Century, translated into English and published by Harvard University Press, provides massive data showing a widening gap between the rich and the poor, thus questioning not only the claim that the capitalist economy works for all but also underscoring the point of how dangerous the current system is to democracy itself. Indeed, a few years ago, Larry M. Bartels’s Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age, published by Princeton University Press, pointed to the same gap between the rich and poor in the United States under Republican administrations.

~snip~

As actually existing capitalism has given up any pretext of being a “socially responsible” socioeconomic system and caters almost solely to the needs and interests of the rich and powerful by enforcing policies that are detrimental to the rest of society, the defenders of the status quo will get even more dangerous by denying the ugly truth about predatory capitalism. They don’t want to hear that actually existing capitalism is a system that favors passionately and defends ruthlessly the interests of the 1% over those of the rest of society. Doing so might jeopardize the goal of the elite to roll back the course of history to the detriment of the working populations so they can further enrich themselves and act like the new rulers of the world.

July 5, 2014

NSA Experts: 'National Security Has Become a State Religion'

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/interview-with-nsa-experts-on-us-spying-in-germany-a-979215.html

In a SPIEGEL interview, Edward Snowden's lawyer, Jesselyn Radack, and former NSA contractor Thomas Drake discuss the reasons behind the American spying agency's obssession with collecting data.

NSA Experts: 'National Security Has Become a State Religion'
Interview Conducted By Sven Becker, Marcel Rosenbach and Jörg Schindler
July 04, 2014 – 03:41 PM

~snip~

SPIEGEL: Germany's federal prosecutor has opened a formal inquiry into the surveillance of Angela Merkel's mobile phone, but he did not open an investigation into the mass surveillance of German citizens, saying that there was no evidence to do so. Mr. Drake, as a former NSA employee, what's your take on this?

Drake: It stretches the bounds of incredulity. Germany has become, after 9/11, the most important surveillance platform for the NSA abroad. The only German citizen granted protection by a statement by Barack Obama is Angela Merkel. All other Germans are obviously treated as suspects by the NSA.

SPIEGEL: Ms. Radack, do you have an explanation for the German federal prosecutor's position?

Radack: Of course. They don't want to find out the truth. Either they're complicit to some extent or they don't really care to investigate.

July 5, 2014

Germany summons US envoy over spy case

http://www.adn.com/2014/07/04/3546406/report-german-intel-worker-suspected.html?sp=/99/171/



In this picture taken Thursday evening July 3, 2014, former NSA employee Thomas Drake, center, arrives at the parliamentary NSA investigation committee in Berlin, Germany, German lawmakers began hearing expert testimony for a probe into the activities of foreign intelligence agencies in Germany. The inquiry was sparked by reports based on documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, which showed that German citizens, including Chancellor Angela Merkel, were targeted by U.S. intelligence

Germany summons US envoy over spy case
By FRANK JORDANS
Associated Press
July 4, 2014 Updated 17 minutes ago

BERLIN — Germany summoned the U.S. ambassador in Berlin on Friday following the arrest of a man reported to have spied for the United States, heightening friction between the two countries over alleged U.S. eavesdropping in Germany.

U.S. Ambassador John B. Emerson was called in "in connection with an investigation by the federal prosecutor," the German Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The U.S. envoy "was asked to help in the swift clarification" of the case, it added.

Federal prosecutors say a 31-year-old German man was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of spying for foreign intelligence services. They did not identify the suspect or the intelligence services.

German government spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters that Chancellor Angela Merkel been personally informed of the arrest.

July 5, 2014

Not Following Rules: Cities and States Refuse to Enforce Federal Immigration Regulations

http://www.alternet.org/immigration/not-following-rules-cities-and-states-refuse-enforce-federal-immigration-regulations?paging=off¤t_page=1#bookmark



“We’re not just going to sit and wait. We’re going to make our local communities safe.”

Not Following Rules: Cities and States Refuse to Enforce Federal Immigration Regulations
By Alyssa Figueroa

July 2, 2014 | Seven months ago, Santos Gutierrez and Victoriano Aguilar were driving to a store in Springfield, Mass, when they were pulled over by police.

~snip~

Aguilar is not alone. One thousand people have been deported in Massachusetts since the program went into full effect two years ago. More than 50 percent of those deported had no criminal record, Bliss Requa-Trautz, an organizer with Just Communities said. Another 17 percent, she said, had minor offenses, such as traffic violations. Nationally, one-fourth of those deported under Secure Communities had no criminal record. One-fifth had committed serious offenses, while the rest were lower-level offenses. In other words, the program is a dragnet trapping far more people than intended.

Passing the Trust Act in Massachusetts would stop these deportations of non-violent, undocumented immigrants, Requa-Trautz said. This is mainly because law enforcement, though still obligated to share fingerprint data with ICE, won’t be required to arrest and detain undocumented immigrants until ICE decides their fate. People like Aguilar would not be thrown into a prison system with no way out. The Trust Act has already proven to be successful in California. Deportations through the Secure Communities program there have plummeted by around 44 percent after the Trust Act was enacted in the beginning of the year.

Fighting for the Trust Act is just one way states and local governments are moving forward with immigration reform as the GOP-controlled House has blocked almost all of the Obama administration’s attempts at federal immigration reform—except for saying that arrests and deportations should continue. The Trust Act is a more ambitious attempt to circumvent ICE because it protects an entire state against Secure Communities. But in addition, more than 140 local jurisdictions have passed ordinances or executive orders stating that they are not going to follow the rules anymore and will not be complying with the Secure Communities program. Some of these jurisdictions include cities with large immigrant populations like Los Angeles, San Diego and Miami.

July 3, 2014

Syrian Opposition: Baghdadi “Caliphate” lame attempt to take Spotlight off his Crime Spree

http://www.juancole.com/2014/07/baghdadi-declares-emperor.html

Syrian Opposition: Baghdadi “Caliphate” lame attempt to take Spotlight off his Crime Spree
By Juan Cole | Jul. 2, 2014

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s proclamation of himself as “caliph” is rather like the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan declaring himself the Holy Roman emperor. A small criminal/ terrorist group making claim on an archaic institution is more worthy of ridicule than awe. Having offended educated Muslims around the world, the extremely violent psychopath and serial mass murderer, whose real name is Ibrahim al-Badri, went on Tuesday to call on Muslims to immigrate into his so-called ‘Islamic State’ in northern Syria and northern Iraq. He also declared a holy struggle (jihad) against his enemies during the fasting month of Ramadan.

At the same time, the anti-Assad opposition in Syria issued a joint statement from its “Religious Law Bureau,” saying that al-Baghdadi’s declaration of a caliphate is illegitimate both according to Islamic law and according to simple reason. In Syria, al-Baghdadi has killed his putative allies against Bashar al-Assad with such vicious abandon that even core al-Qaeda threw him out of their movement.

The religious affairs bureaus of the opposition groups said that “the prerequisites for the caliphate do not exist in our own time.” They said it was particularly invalid with regard to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.” They said that al-Baghdadi’s declaration of the caliphate was an attempt to escape from his crimes and to endow his violent activities with an Islamic patina, especially his war on his opponents and on those who refuse to pledge fealty to him.

Al-Baghdadi’s call for immigrant Muslims refers to some medieval jurisprudents who forbade Muslims to live under non-Muslim rule and who urged them to emigrate to a Muslim-ruled kingdom. He is implying that Middle Eastern states are actually non-Muslim, and as such are apostates who should be killed. The “true” Muslims should therefore leave their homelands and come to live under ISIS.

July 2, 2014

NSA can intercept any communications ‘concerning’ all but four countries

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/07/01/nsa-can-intercept-any-communications-concerning-all-but-four-countries/



NSA can intercept any communications ‘concerning’ all but four countries
By Agence France-Presse
Tuesday, July 1, 2014 10:56 EDT

The US National Security Agency has been authorized to intercept information “concerning” all but four countries worldwide, top-secret documents say, according to The Washington Post.

“The United States has long had broad no-spying arrangements with those four countries — Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand,” the Post reported Monday.

Yet “a classified 2010 legal certification and other documents indicate the NSA has been given a far more elastic authority than previously known, one that allows it to intercept through US companies not just the communications of its overseas targets but any communications about its targets as well.”

The certification — approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and included among a set of documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden — says 193 countries are “of valid interest for US intelligence.”

July 1, 2014

Ruling Hindu Tea Party wants to “Develop” India for its 1%

http://www.juancole.com/2014/07/ruling-develop-india.html

Ruling Hindu Tea Party wants to “Develop” India for its 1%
By contributors | Jul. 1, 2014
By Gyanendra Pandey New Delhi

Through the President’s address to Parliament on June 9, 2014, the newly elected Indian Government has officially outlined its short and longer-term agenda. The emphasis, as expected, is on faster economic growth. Questions of welfare and security for the poor and disadvantaged are, however, very superficially addressed. This has to be cause for concern if sabka saath, sabka vikas is indeed the aim of the Government’s programme: All the more so, given the brutal violence the country continues to witness against women, religious minorities, and the lowest castes and classes.

The central slogan of the programme is ‘Development through good governance’. Development is an old idea, prescribed in the period after World War II by a triumphant capitalist, imperialist West for the colonised and ex-colonised nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America. A different orthodoxy arose a few decades later, in the form of a strategy of economic liberalisation, encouragement of private investment, trickle-down theories of growth and technocratic solutions for social problems. This turn, too, was initiated in the West, most stridently by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. It was adopted wholesale in the early 1990s, by a Congress government led by P.V. Narasimha Rao. And it has been followed by every Indian government since.

A BJP campaign hoarding ahead of the Lok Sabha elections

The BJP Government is set to continue these neo-liberal policies. The difference is that it describes the economic results- the spurt in investments and profits at the top, the growth of a large new consumerist middle class, mass disempowerment, and increasing disparities in wealth and income, security and welfare- as ‘development’.

The other vital term in the Government’s official agenda is ‘governance’. What this means is not so obvious. But any careful reading of the President’s speech, and of earlier statements and documents put out by the leaders of BJP, makes clear that it refers primarily to better coordination between different arms of Government and greater bureaucratic efficiency and speed, both to be realised through new technology as much as anything else. So we now have a promise of: ‘governance’, ‘e-governance’, a ‘Digital India’, a national e-library, a ‘national mission “e-Bhasha” that will develop digital vernacular content and disseminate our classic literature in different languages’, and ‘a National Multiskill Mission (to develop a) Skilled India’. In short, what human endeavour and political struggle have failed to deliver, science and technology are now going to do.